THE 2004 season has effectively started for the Jets, with fund-raising efforts continuing all the way through the summer. Newtown's merchandise sales at the various inner western street festivals have been very useful earners, as well as being tremendous public relations exercises for the club.
It all starts again this Sunday, 21 September, with the annual Marrickville Festival. This is of course in our heartland support area, with a crowd in excess of 45,000 expected to attend the day-long Festival.

DO you all remember how your fathers told you about the day he saw Clive Churchill run out onto the field, or when he saw how the Saints win all there premierships and were unstoppable? Where have these days gone? These days of a family day out at the Rugby League match with crowds of 30,000 at the SCG have been replaced by the new age stadiums and overpaid players. Yobo's are the norm at our games now, with the high level of access to alcohol tainting the image of Rugby league in our country.

ERICSSON Stadium yesterday afternoon hosted a showcase of rugby league in New Zealand with the fans viewing some top notch action in both the Mad Butcher Fox Memorial trophy and the main event, the Bartercard Cup.

THE 2003 Finals series kicked off on Friday night with the Raiders going down 30-18 to Melbourne at a freezing cold Canberra Stadium. It was an awesome display from the Storm who overcame a 12 point deficit to completely out-gun the Raiders' defence and put the Green Machine's 2003 aspirations on hold.

WARRIORS coach Daniel Anderson has named an unchanged squad to face the Canberra Raiders.
The only change from last weeks rout of the Bulldogs is the inclusion of Motu Tony on the bench in place of Tevita Latu who is still suffering from pnuemonia.

MITSUBISHI Electric Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes has shown faith in his squad that went down 48-22 to the Warriors last weekend, by naming all 17 players as a part of an expanded Bulldogs unit to take on the Melbourne Storm this Sunday.